so, sylvia did

Melanin popin’

@missenocha

Kudos to MICA Digital Initiatives Librarian Jenny Ferretti for creating this impressive and comprehensive LibGuide on Beyoncé’s ‘Lemonade’: http://libguides.mica.edu/lemonade.The guide shares more information about the poetry, literary references, film and video references, collaborators, talking points, and locations within the visual album.

Watch a Powerful Poem by Porsha Olayiwola 

In her own words, “Black, poet, dyke-goddess, hip-hop feminist, womanist, friend, Porsha Olayiwola is a performance artist who believes in pixie dust and second chances”. Her powerful poetry has led to her becoming the 2014 Individual World Poetry Slam Champion, as well as a finalist at the 2012 Women of the World Poetry Slam tournament. The poem “Water” spills light on the real origin of why Black people avoid water.

Full video

I remember being teased relentlessly throughout my childhood and my teenage life where people would say that because of my skin I’ll never be beautiful enough, they would even recommend skin bleaching products. So as a child I quickly realised that as a dark skinned girl I was not considered beautiful enough… At that time I didn’t know that it was the negativity from the people around me that was causing me to hate my skin and myself for that matter. I remember a time during school photos where a girl shouted “she’s too dark! You won’t see anything on her ID but her teeth!”, of course everyone laughed it out… And so did I…. Because I didn’t want to make it seem like I was offended… Their feelings felt more important than mine… After all growing up I was always reminded of how unlikely I was of ever being beautiful or finding someone that found my darkness beautiful….. As a 19 year old today I sit here and say “I never gave in to skin bleaching”, “I was constantly reminded of how ugly I was but that only made me love myself even more….. I began considering myself as someone different, someone beautiful and out of the ordinary.” Your skin no matter how dark it is that when you smile you can only see the glow of your teeth is worthy of love, your skin is that of a goddess and you should never feel anything about your skin but self love. I write this to all of the people that have gone through similar and worse, you don’t need to learn to Love your skin, the love is already there… You just gotta unleash it.